Natural products (also referred to as a secondary metabolites) encompass a wide array of truely unique chemical structures.  From the largest trees to the smallest microorganisms, all types of living creatures make natural products.  All natural products are built by cells from common metabolic intermediates (e.g., sugars, lipids, amino acids, etc.).  These compounds play a variety of critical biological roles that include serving as chemical defense agents and acting as chemical messengers.

Natural products represent some of the most remarkable compounds known to humankind.  As a result of our studies, we are gaining greater insight into the role that chemistry plays in shaping our world, as well as finding new disease-fighting drugs.  The vast array of known and yet to be discovered plants, microbes, and marine organisms that make natural products is astounding.  The incredible wealth of yet to be explored microbes, plants, and marine organisms means that today’s researchers have scarcely begun to realize the true potential of natural products for helping solve a wide range of biomedical problems.  The future of natural products is very promising and we are proud to be a part of the discovery process.  If you are interested in learning more about participating in our research, please see the list of available research positions, as well as our research participation program, which is open to the general public.

Humans also benefit tremendously from natural products.  For many years, natural products have served as a cornerstone of the pharmaceutical industry leading to the development of numerous lifesaving drugs that help treat everything from cancer to heart disease.  If you have ever taken a prescription drug it is quite likely that a natural product played an important part in creating that medicine.  Today, natural products are still key components of the drug discovery process and labs like the Natural Products Discovery Group are using these compounds to help combat disease.  For more examples of the roles that natural products play in our world, please see our list of ongoing research projects.

The roles that secondary metabolites fulfill in nature are remarkably diverse and the study of these functions falls within a specialized field of study known as chemical ecology.  The purpose of chemical ecology is to understand how natural products drive ecological interactions.  Questions such as “how do antibiotics help microbes compete for resources in the soil?” and “how do plants use volatile compounds to communicate with potential pollinators?” are examples of what chemical ecologist study.